The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

3 6 THE FOOT OF TIME
think there are many of them. Quite a harem!
Will you please tell your wife precisely how many
concubines you do keep?"
Still he didn't answer, only looked at her and
looked.
"And so," Clare continued, failing to get a word
out of him, "when you married me in England you
loved one, or perhaps it is two, other girls?"
"Good God, Clare!" her husband suddenly let
out, "you don't suppose I love them, do you?"
"I really don't know what you call love—Soloman,"
she told him with bitter irony.
"You are a woman, and cannot understand,
Clare."
"Oh, no, of course not. Women never do understand
anything, do they? We're just chattels. Oh,
no, I don't understand. How should I?"
"Love is mental, not physical, Clare. Oh, yes, I
know it must, in the nature of things, lead to the
other, but primarily, I mean, in the first place,
love—I mean real love, Clare, dear—is as far removed
from mere desire as
"And so you want to ask me to believe that you
never really loved this—these—Bruce, how many
girls were there?"
The man looked at her gravely. He could
scarcely tell her that if on very rare occasions some
new girl greatly attracted him an affluent pension
came unwittingly to another.
"Whatever difference can it make?"
"I must know. Tell me."
"My dear, I warned you that as a European
THE FOOT OF TIME 37
woman you would never understand. Whether you
like it or not, and every woman born knows it in
her soul, man is a polygamous animal. Every
natural law under the sun proves it. One should
bow to convention. I fully agree that marriage is
without question the best, indeed, the only scheme
to dovetail in with present-day Western civilisation.
But as to its being natural—well, my dear, it simply
isn't, that's all!"
"You great beast! Oh, how I hate you! Repulsive
brute!"
Ignoring her, Bruce continued: "Speaking physically,
only women are expected by nature to
mother one man's children. Once that law is
broken you know as well as I do what results.
Everything goes wrong. Contrarily, a male can
support as many wives as—as he likes, and no harm
results."
"And so—so—you keep an Eastern harem?"
"It's quite a recognised Eastern custom, Clare."
Horror in her eyes, she stared at him. "And—
and the children, Bruce?"
"Oh, no, Clare. There are no children. The
mischance which has just occurred is totally out
of the ordinary. I have no children. I only learned
of this from Mackenzie recently. Good fellow,
Mackenzie—think no end of him. Down on me
like a ton of bricks. Don't blame him, either! You
know where you are with men of his stamp. I'm
English myself, and proud of it; wouldn't be anything
else for all you could give me, but there is a
lot to be said for our hardy friends up North.
They're clever, too—"